JOINT DECLARATION BY PATRIARCH KIRILL OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA AND SUPREME PATRIARCH AND CATHOLICOS KAREKIN II OF ALL ARMENIANS
Interfax
March 23 2010
Russia
We thank our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who has given us the
opportunity to meet at the First Capital City of Holy Etchmiadzin in
the Lenten period from March 16 to 18, 2010, when the whole Christendom
is preparing for the holy feast of Easter.
We venerated the relics of St. Gregory the Enlightener
Equal-to-the-Apostles who is the patron saint of the Armenian
Apostolic Church and who is also venerated as saint by the Russian
Orthodox Church. We honoured the memory of Russian soldiers who
fell in fighting on distant approaches to Holy Etchmiadzin in 1827,
defending Christian faith and the shrines of the Armenian Apostolic
Church. We commemorated the victims of the 1915-1923 Armenian Genocide.
We visited the Russian Orthodox Parish of the Protecting Veil of
the Most Holy Virgin in Yerevan. Patriarch Kirill and the Russian
Orthodox delegation attended a service at St. George the Enlightener
Cathedral in Yerevan, which was built to mark the 1700th anniversary
of Armenia’s conversion to Christianity. Catholicos Karekin II has
awarded Patriarch Kirill the Order of St. Gregory the Enlightener, the
highest decoration of the Armenian Apostolic Church. In the presence of
Catholicos Karekin II of All Armenians, Patriarch Kirill has laid the
foundation stone of a Russian Orthodox Church to be built in Yerevan
and dedicated to the Elevation of the Lord’s Honourable and Life-giving
Cross. The two primates visited the Yerevan State University and gave
their patriarchal blessings to Armenian students, intellectuals and
public leaders. They presented there an Armenian version of Patriarch
Kirill’s two books entitled Freedom and Responsibility in Search for
Harmony and A Pastor’s Word. The Yerevan State University has granted
Patriarch Kirill the degree of doctor emeritus.
During our meeting with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, we
discussed the development of church-state relations in Armenia and
the countries nourished spiritually by the Moscow Patriarchate. We
also spoke about the role of our Churches in public life today and
the activities carried out by the primates of the two Churches to
strengthen peace in the region. With interest we heard about the
established and developing allied relations between the Republic of
Armenia and the Russian Federation and about new plans for cooperation
in the Commonwealth of the Independent States.
We praise the Almighty who helps us to strengthen ties between our
two Churches and fraternal relations between their primates. We thank
God for the fact that in our two countries the number of parishes has
grown, new churches built, monasteries opened and beatified, church
shrines preserved reverently, church-state relations developed, the
number of church-affiliated youth, cultural, educational, social and
humanitarian structures and institutions grown.
We attach great importance to the work of church representations at
the patriarchal thrones of the two Churches as these representations
are called to promote contacts between them. The Supreme Patriarch and
Catholicos of All Armenians has his representative to His Holiness
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia in the person of the head of
the Armenian Apostolic diocese of Russia and Novo-Nakhichevan. The
construction of a new Russian church in Yerevan creates conditions
for His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia to send his
representative to the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All
Armenians.
Our two Churches will continue bilateral dialogue on pastoral and
theological issues and maintain cooperation in the sphere of youth
education and formation. The Russian Orthodox and the Armenian
Apostolic Churches intend to help each other in training the clergy
capable of responding to the challenges of today’s world.
Among important spheres of cooperation between the two Churches
is social work including pastoral care of the military, service in
prisons, work in hospitals and charity and rehabilitation centers.
In the globalization situation, we urge our clergy to increase their
efforts for propagating Christian faith and values asserted on its
basis. In response to new religious trends growing in the world today,
we believe it necessary to take joint actions in preventing the harmful
and destructive activities of various sects and pseudo-religious
organizations.
Inter-Christian and interreligious relations are important for both
the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church. It is
only through the common efforts of all the traditional religions in
the world that we can defend the value of faith for people’s private
and public life. We re-affirm out readiness to develop the work of the
Inter-confessional Advisory Committee of the CIS and Baltic Countries
and the CIS Interreligious Council and to continue trilateral and
quadrilateral meetings of the religious leaders in the region in
pursuit of peace and well-being in the Caucasus. Patriarch Kirill has
conveyed to Catholicos Karekin II an invitation from Sheikh-ul-Islam
Allahshukur Pasha-zade, head of the Caucasus Moslem Board, and from
himself to take part in the Summit of Religious Leaders to take place
on April 26-27, 2010, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
We thank God for the great gift of friendship between our two Churches
and pray to Him that the fruits of this friendship may be manifested
in the life of our faithful and may bear witness to God’s boundless
love of all us.